All These Moments
by Ataraxie
Summary: "...But at the end of the road, when we find ourselves faced with the reality of our life, we can only come to one conclusion: all these moments were useful and made us what we have become." A little piece of Severus and Hermione's life together. One-Shot.


One-shot ahead...

This is the first time for me, and I hope that you will enjoy this little story. I wanted to write something longer at the beginning, but then, I said to myself that when we "read" a photo album, all of the memories stuck on it come to us in a burst. That's why this one-shot is short.

I love to listen to music while I write, so here are the albums that inspired me for this one shot: James Vincent McMorrow - Post Tropical / Birdy - Fire Within.

Two melancholic albums that I really like. :)

None of these characters are mine, of course.

Enjoy!

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**All These Moments**

Nothing ever goes as expected in a lifetime. We take shortcuts, we make choices that sometimes do not seem to be the right ones. Sometimes we make decisions that seem far from what we are inside. But at the end of the road, when we find ourselves faced with the reality of our life, we can only come to one conclusion:

_**A****ll these moments were useful and made us what we have become**._

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Sitting at her desk, her hair up in a messy bun, Hermione Jane Granger turned with a careless hand the pages of a photo album which she had made a few weeks ago, after putting her hand on multiple photographs she had taken for many years. Her hand lingered on a photograph of her and the man who shared her life since more than four years, and a smile lit up her face. They were at Hogsmeade, and he had slipped a shy hand around her shoulder as she threw him a sidelong glance.

_Severus_.

She had taken time to tame him, to break the thick shell that was supposed to protect him from any external aggression. Love, which had knocked on his door on a beautiful sunny winter morning, had been for him an aggression, the ultimate assault. It had been several months that they were working together, she as an Auror estimated by the whole profession, him, putting his knowledge about Dark Arts available to the Auror's office, in order to dismantle a network of mages that was becoming more and more powerful with time.

They had hated each other, neither couldn't forget the seven years they spent together at Hogwarts, despite Severus' rehabilitation a year earlier. But the opportunity to work with him for several weeks had changed the bad impression that Hermione had had towards Severus. She had discovered a more human person, to her astonishment.

She always remembered with great accuracy this day of December when she appeared on his doorstep, her coat coated with fine snowflakes coat and a resigned face. He opened the door to let her in, and she entered before dropping the mask once the door was closed.

"I can't..." she murmured, dropping into the chair she had become accustomed to take possession of every time she arrived at Spinner's End.

Severus took place beside her, a worried expression on his face.

"What are you talking about, Hermione?"

"This mission... I do not understand the link - yet obvious! - between Declan and Sethar. I can't, Severus, and you know as well as I how important this is. If I can't do it, the whole mission will fail, and this is the worst thing that can happen to the Auror's office in these troubled times. And obviously, this is my fault," she added with a wry laugh.

"I am convinced that the situation is not as dramatic as you think, Hermione. Think about it," he said taking her hand in his, without even thinking.

She had frozen and had met his dark eyes fixed on her, while a completely omitted element was making sense in her mind.

"The tattoo... They have the same tattoo, Severus, at the same place, same size..." she had whispered as her face lit up with a smile.

And without even thinking, she leaned toward him, and had put a kiss on his lips. It was quick, but long enough for both of them having the reflex to close their eyes for a moment.

She was twenty-one years old, and was taken aback by the ardor of her youth, but also specific to her work that she was doing with a passion she had never known before.

This passion changed of subject quickly, however, and it turned to the object of her desires, Severus Snape. Severus, for months, simply contented to meet her demands, without ever seeking himself. Severus allowed himself to be completely devoured by the love she felt for him, but never tried to give her a share of him in return.

This photograph that was moving according to their movements under her fingers yet represented the moment when things had changed between them, where he had finally agreed to make the effort to go to her, and put aside his reluctance to any love proof. That day was the first after six months of relationship, where he had been able to tell her that he loved her. He had told her after the photograph was taken, in Hogsmeade where all the Aurors were celebrating the success of the mission conducted with a master hand by Hermione. She also thanked Severus, " without whom this mission would not have been a happy ending", during her speech that all expected.

It was after this speech they had vanished, and he had taken her hand in public, another first in their relationship.

Hermione had first thought he would ask her to marry him , sticking to the serious expression he was wearing. But it did not happen, and she was entitled to a "I love you" full of promises. The kiss that followed this statement was the most sensual they have never shared, filled with a love that was growing with time.

One year after this statement, they had their first ordeal, the most difficult of all of them. They wasn't even living together at the time, as evidenced in this photo of Hermione in her old apartment she had rented in the heart of London. That year, she had the worst nausea of her existence, the worst dizziness worse too. It was only for a good cause, but she learned it a month later, during a routine annual inspection on St Mungo in the context of her work.

"You are pregnant, Miss Granger."

The words had echoed in her mind for long seconds, as she was asking herself the eternal questions she did not fail to arise when an unexpected situation imposed to her. Where, when, how? What would she do? Did she have to tell it to Severus?

Hermione had finally decided not to do so. She thought it was the best solution for the moment. She had to go to Peru for a mission two weeks after that appointment, and she was afraid of his reaction. He could have two diametrically opposed reactions: he could take it positively and prohibit her from going to risk her life and that of their unborn child in Peru, or he would not want the birth of this child that she was already fond of.

Fate had finally knocked on her door three weeks later, after a bad fall on the last day of her mission. Hermione had been repatriated in emergency in England, and that was at her bedside that Severus had heard the news.

"You lost the baby, I'm sorry."

_Misunderstanding_. That was what he seemed to feel when the healer had pronounced this funeral sentence. She could not restrain her tears, devastated by the loss of this human being who chose to make her belly its nest, and that had not survived the indiscriminate choice of its mother.

When she raised her eyes to meet Severus' gaze, the misunderstanding she had seen a few seconds earlier had been replaced by anger.

"_You knew_."

Those were the only words he uttered before he left St Mungo without another glance at her, leaving her there alone, plagued by guilt. Yes, she knew.

Other photographs paraded before her eyes, reflections of this period of her life where she had lived without Severus at her side. These long months when he refused to see here, when he had erected a barrier between them. She took refuge in work after being assigned to office work only. Life went on. Hermione had attended the birth of James Sirius Potter, the firstborn of Ginny and Harry, and had not felt this strange lack a woman who lost a child sometimes seemed to feel at the vision of another as her own. James Sirius was perfect, and he allowed her to grieve, in a certain way.

Severus returned to her life a normal day of June, and they resumed their history without ever having the courage to speak about the child they had shared just for a few weeks. They were sufficient to themselves, Severus had told her one evening before going to bed in their new home they bought together to make a clean sweep of the past.

If they were sufficient to themselves, so why not get married?, she had asked him a few months later, when she had probably drunk a little too much at a party they had shared with Harry, Ginny, Ron and his fiancée, Padma Patil.

"Why get married?" he replied, pointing to his office where he had locked himself for the rest of night.

Hermione took weeks to recover from his cold and direct response, and was finally able to put aside her grief and resentment towards him. She did not need a ring on her finger to know that he loved her, did she? Life resumed its course, and she was never assigned to a dangerous mission anymore. She had been promoted as the Vice Manager of the Auror's office, and did not intend to stop in a so good way.

Hermione even turned a dozen pages before falling on an empty space. A smile appeared on her face, and she took the photograph she had laid on the table in her hands, and stuck it carefully into the album. She could see Severus' radiant face, posing a delicate hand on the belly slightly rebounded of his fiancée who wore a ring with a diamond on her left hand.

It had been over four years that she was collecting in her memory all those moments she had shared with Severus Snape. Today, all those memories were gathered in a book she could browse whenever the mood took her, and she was convinced that more images would quickly join them, she said to herself while putting a protective hand on her belly.

All these moments were a reflection of her life. Of their life together.

**THE END**


End file.
